Chinese lithium battery company BAK Battery has stopped using ‘low quality’ Chinese copper and aluminum foil— preferring instead American and Japanese products.
BAK’s chairman Shuquan Zhang said on their website that the company uses foreign foil because they make better performing batteries.
Using US and Japanese foil, BAK says its batteries can reach 1,000-1,500 cycles.
His statement comes after BAK found domestic and foreign foils— along with the diaphragm— is almost the same within 500 cycles, but up to 1000 cycles, the quality of the product became a problem.
The short life of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) lithium batteries is a major issue, said Zhang.
He pointed out two other key issues hampering the Chinese EV development.
Firstly, China has the strong purchasing power and demands for EVs, but there is still not a leading product in the market, and Chinese EV OEMs are still to meet customer expectations.
This despite China’s domestic new energy vehicle market being the world’s largest: in the first half of 2016, Chinese new energy vehicle production and sales reached 177,000, of which it sold 170,000 within the country.
Secondly, Zhang believes that battery manufactures have the duty to solve the battery-recycling problem by helping create a sustainable development plan for the future of EVs.
Until then using brand new lithium batteries will remain more expensive than recycling lithium-ion batteries.
Meanwhile, the company received a further ¥900 million ($133 million) investment from Smallville Capital, CSC Group and China’s SME Fund.
It comes after an earlier ¥800 million ($118 million)-investment from Shenzhen-listed industrial firm, Wuhu Token Sciences Co.
